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Great post. Let me try to answer some of your well-put questions/points (which I rephrased for simplicity’s sake)–

1) 1) Any religion is valuable because they tend to adhere to a positive belief system, thus benefitting people who believe in said religion.

Not so. Look at Islam. The ‘fruits’ of Islam are suicide bombers, dictatorial regimes etc. Look at Judaism. Judaism is a religion of denial and saving face after its leaders effectively killed Jesus. Hinduism is a polytheistic religion that only a small fraction of the world’s population believe in and that has no good ‘fruits’ whatsoever. The Same with Buddhism and other New Age fads. The fact of the matter is, Christianity is the only religion that people actively convert to and as a result of having converted, have stories and testimonies to then tell others. These people then feel the intense desire to share that knowledge with the world. No other religion desires to spread the Gospel in this way, other than Christianity. Islam doesn’t count because they just want to kill and murder people.

2) Religious conflicts are the root cause of much destruction and evil throughout the world.

This is like the argument, guns kill people. No, people kill people. People are evil and sinful by nature. Yes, including me. But aside from that, there’s really only one belligerent, violent religion and that’s Islam. I don’t mean to bash Islam and I don’t desire that Islamic nations, ‘vanish from the pages of time’ to quote someone you might know, but I happen to believe that Islam was inspired by a demon. If you read about when the prophet Mohammed first began to communicate with what he thought was the Holy Spirit, he describes being frightened and intimidated in a negative way. This is not how the Holy Spirit operates. Anything that inspires fear is not of God.

3) Religion serves the purpose of keeping society in order by creating fear for social or divine retribution.

Christianity does, maybe Judaism, but that’s about it. Other religions don’t go into detail about how one should live. If you want to live by the Golden Rule, but not attribute it to God, then you’re not realizing where the Golden Rule came from. Also, the Golden Rule, when not grounded in the Bible, can get fuzzy because how can you know how to treat someone else, if you have a very subjective view of how you should live your life (I’m not saying you, but most people).

4) The Bible is just a historical document and has no divine origin.

That’s nice that you went on to a website that confirmed what you already seemed to believe, but if you actually open your mind, instead of pretending to open your mind, and read the Gospel yourself, instead of reading some not-so-smart guy’s interpretation of it, then you may change your opinion on this. My challenge to you is to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with an open mind, and really ask yourself if you believe that Jesus was just some guy who lived a long time ago and not the son of God. You don’t know what you don’t know, my friend.

5) If God is so good, why would he allow so much evil and suffering in the world?

Great question, maybe your best question. This is the singular question that I believe leads people away from God the most. My answer (and I don’t profess to be a pastor, or expert on the matter, just a Christian), is free will. God gave us free will. And to put it simply, we reap what we sow. Hurricanes and earthquakes are really forms of God’s judgement. Wars and turmoil are also forms of God’s judgement on people. Why do you think Haiti was devastated? Because Haitians were notoriously into the occult and Voodoo. Why is America going down the tube? Because we’ve fallen away from God and our God-given right to be free and have accepted further and further encroachments on our liberty under the guise of security. We’ve fallen away from our first principles. People bring calamity down on their own heads by their own actions. God doesn’t protect us from this. Small children can seem like casualties in cases of domestic violence and such, and unfortunately, they are, but it’s not because of Him, it’s because of the actions of people.

6) Does God favor his ‘chosen people’ and if so, why does he play favorites?

No, God doesn’t play favorites, but He blesses those who love and represent Him in their actions/lives. The Jewish people were the first people on earth who did this, so in a sense they were His ‘chosen people.’ This doesn’t mean that other people are heathen trash, but just that Jews were His first. I believe that now, anyone who represents God can be ‘chosen.’ Jews were also ‘chosen’ because it was the Semitic line (from Shem, one of Noah’s three sons’) that Jesus descended from.

7) Why is there contradictory information found in the Bible?

Why are you reading the Bible like a lawyer? The Bible is a series of stories with emotional content. Just because you find two seemingly disparate notions in the Bible doesn’t mean that they contradict each other. This isn’t logic (this, therefore that).

8) Why does God become angered and why is he so demanding of worship?

God is demanding of worship because he is the Creator of the Universe, bro. Everything we have comes from Him. If we don’t realize that and thank and worship Him for His grace and goodness to us, we’re nothing more than sniveling little ingrates.

9) Why didn’t God just make himself known as well as the rules and consequences of his laws, instead of playing the “faith game”?

Once again, it has to do with free will, but also because He is the Creator of the Universe and can do whatever he wants, regardless of whether you think it’s fair or not, and besides God loves us and believes we can overcome incredible trials, not matter how difficult they may seem.

10) Isn’t the story of Jesus just a plagiarized version of other creation myths promulgated throughout history?

What did you watch Zeitgeist and now you think you’re smarter than everyone. Let me tell you something. Zeitgeist is nothing more than a well-crafted propaganda piece to lead people away from Christ. Don’t ask me how I know this, but there is no sense of time in the realm of eternity, where angels, demons and God exist. Demons have been trying to lead humankind away from Christ from thousands of years and they knew how Christ would appear, so they mimicked it by inspiring lots of pagan myths throughout history regarding Egyptian, Macedonian, and even Greek and Roman Gods. The fact that none of these other pagan religions stood the test of time is evidence enough that they were completely bogus. Look at the effect of Christianity on the world and how powerful it has been and compare that to the Egyptian creation myth. I don’t know anyone who believes in Horus, do you?

11) Blind acceptance of religion is handed down through the generations and is a heritable genetic trait.

What are you talking about? Don’t you know how many people have been saved who’ve lived a horrible, sinful life, raised by alcoholic parents and hooked on crack, who suddenly find Jesus and make a complete turnaround? Do you think this a coincidence? In the cases of these people, there was nothing ‘genetic’ in their belief in Jesus.

If you’re still skeptical, I would go to youtube.com and watch the hundreds of testimonials of people who’ve found Jesus and then ask yourself if you still think all of it is fake.

I’m sorry if I was abrasive in my answers, but I love you and want you to find the truth.

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